Pizza delivery is a multi-billion dollar industry. The growth of the business has kept pace with the development of suitable containers for carrying the pizza. The modern pizza delivery box such as that used by the large retail chain stores is, in many ways, the ideal delivery system. In order to be an ideal delivery system, the boxes must possess a combination of traits. The boxes must keep the pizza warm, be sturdy enough to withstand the delivery process, and be inexpensive to manufacture. Boxes known in the art achieve each of these characteristics. One example is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,702,054.
Although boxes found in the art are nearly ideal delivery vehicles for getting the product to the customer, none successfully address post-delivery customer needs. More specifically, most boxes found in art present a disposal problem. Pizza boxes are typically larger than indoor household trash receptacles. In order to dispose of the box, customers must crush or tear the box in order to reduce its size so that it may easily fit into a household trash receptacle. Additionally, the box is typically too large to easily fit into the household refrigerator for storing leftover pizza.
The subject of several patents is the improvement of the typical pizza box to help alleviate these shortcomings. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,273,206 and 5,197,659 disclose pizza box designs incorporating score-lines designed to facilitate rolling the pizza box into a cylindrical shape when empty for ease of disposal. U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,949 discloses a pizza box incorporating removable punch-out sections and weakening lines, which facilitate folding the box in half for ease of disposal. U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,392 discloses a box incorporating a transverse perforation, which facilitates breaking the box in two for ease of disposal. Each of the foregoing patents address the need for making the box more easily disposable but do not address leftover storage needs. In addition, each of these designs incorporate extensive score-lines or perforations that are needed to make the box more easily disposable but also significantly weaken the structural integrity of the box during the delivery process. None of these designs incorporate means for selectively weakening the structural integrity of the box by the consumer post-delivery. Additionally, these designs are complex, and may prove difficult to use by many consumers.
Other patents address both ease of disposal and the need to have a box that can accommodate multiple volumes. U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,062 discloses a box incorporating perforated score lines so that the top portion may be ripped off while the bottom portion of the box is retained and folded into a second enclosed box structure for the storage of left over pizza. U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,066 discloses a box design incorporating transverse perforation lines through the lid and bottom portions of the box and an additional fold line which together facilitate breaking the box in two and folding the open end shut for use as a secondary storage container. U.S. Pat. No. 7,051,919 discloses a box incorporating perforations and score lines, which facilitate the removal of multiple pieces of the original box and the folding of the remainder of the box into a tapered box structure for the storage of leftover pizza. However, each of these designs utilize extensive perforations and score lines that significantly weaken the box structure while none incorporate means for selectively weakening the structural integrity of the box by the consumer post-delivery. Further, these designs are also complex, and may prove difficult to use by many consumers. Additionally, none disclose means for easily storing an entire half pizza as leftovers.